Search Results for: Research

BY ALAN OSBORN and KEITH NUTHALL
WITH the European Union (EU) considering reforms to its working time directive, involving the European Commission seeking to undermine the UK’s opt-out system from the legislation’s maximum 48-hour working week, occupational health practitioners will keep a close eye on Brussels in 2005.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched an in-depth inquiry into whether the Czech Republic paid illegal state aid to Czech steel producer Trinecké ?elezárny (TZ). Brussels will investigate whether the Czech government paid the proper market rate when it purchased in April a 10.54% stake in steel company ISPAT Nova Hut from TZ.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A DISUSED steel works site in Luxembourg is to be cleared and redeveloped as the science faculty of the grand duchy’s planned first university. The European Investment Bank (EIB) has announced it will lend up to Euro 200 million to fund the construction of a science, research and innovation park at the former Belval steel works, near Esch-sur-Alzette.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GRANTS worth Euro 1.35 million have been awarded by the Dutch government to fund two new research centres carrying out multidisciplinary studies into the prevention, management and treatment of infectious diseases in the Netherlands and developing countries. The centres will be virtual institutions, recruiting researchers from around the country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NATIONAL governments are often jealous of attempts by the European Union (EU) to increase its power into policy areas that they consider none of its business. Defence and foreign affairs are obvious examples, but health is another. EU member states have long resisted Brussels’ calls for influence over their health policies, but their resolve has weakened of late.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
ENSURING nursing home residents brush their teeth is good standard health practice. After all, it keeps bad breath and tooth decay at bay. But new American research now suggests that tooth brushing is much more important: it could save a life.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
THE WORLD is waking up to biofuels, increasingly produced from food crops and their waste by-products and now one of the growing energy alternatives to conventional fossil fuels. As prices for traditional energy rise year on year, and energy watchers warn of oil production peaking around 2010, governments are looking towards food producers to grow the raw feedstock for the fuel of the twenty-first century.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) member governments and the European Commission have been asked to name the legal and financial obstacles that prevent them effectively fighting livestock diseases. The EU Council of Ministers called on national administrations to develop standing systems guaranteeing continual risk assessment, management and communication of zoonoses, involving the cooperation of relevant laboratories.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CURRENT Dutch presidency of the EU is surveying food-related EU research to inform at meeting of senior officials next February 2005, where governments will discuss boosting cooperation within the EU’s Standing Committee for Agricultural Research.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
OF course, farmers like to say they hate computers. After all agriculture is as far removed from the world of pointy-headed IT technicians as you can get. But actually the truth must be told: computers are useful, especially in helping out with paperwork.…